


The Entertainer

by JackieSBlake7



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackieSBlake7/pseuds/JackieSBlake7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Servalan finds a way to finance her rise to power.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Entertainer

The Entertainer  
Jackie

After having another drink the figures and calculations were still the same.  
Years of arguing the military’s case with civilian paymasters had given Servalan a basic knowledge of practical accounts, and she could understand what she was looking at. She had not been aware quite how much she had been losing with her latest run of gambling– till now. Nor, fortunately, were her superiors in her role as Commissioner Sleer aware of these figures – yet. Ambition they could understand, and, as with others, they tolerated some of her more unorthodox policies because they appeared to work, and gambling and other amusements were accepted as minor diversions, but debts on the scale she had now would be political and personal ruin.  
There was no option but to contact those who had provided her with help in the past.

Her gambling had started when she was sent to Freedom City, as Commissioner Sleer, to investigate matters there: could the Federation authorities get enough evidence to act against it and its rulers. She had accepted the post – partially so she could deal with Krantor and Toise, directly or otherwise – a readily definable threat from her past as Servalan. She had not been in a position to chase up rumours of Blake on some obscure planet nor what had become of Avon and his group – again the information to officially justify pursuit had been lacking and she did not have the clout to insist upon her inclusion. Other rebel figures were presently being considered the greatest threat – new rebel leaders would always emerge.

Things had not quite worked out according to plan. She had done the rounds of the establishments for her reports, and blended in – somewhat too well. Soon she had had to ‘rearrange’ the official finances to cover her gambling losses, the pleasure of the gaming overtaking that of the gains, or the disappointment of losing. When she had suddenly been blocked from further gambling, or leaving Freedom City until some of her losses had been paid she had realised that she had a problem – and, on checking, the extent of her fraud. Servalan had gone round Freedom City, wondering how to escape from the present situation– the petty establishments where she was tolerated allowing bets of a few credits, which, even if she could win consistently, would not reduce even the interest on her debts. She became aware of the other drifters on Freedom City to offer their skills or enjoy what it offered and had failed in either, or to leave while they still had the opportunity, doing whatever was necessary to gain enough credits to survive even a little longer. *She*, who had been Supreme Commander and President, was *not* going to end up like them, whatever the temptation to follow that path – so much easier than taking action.  
Her path had finally led her to Krantor, possibly responsible for the actions taken against her – it would have been weakness to ask if he was. She had had to accept a deal with him – she would promote the interests of Freedom City within the Federation, and her debts would be covered. The accounts Krantor had shown her had been impressive – his offer to buy Space Command, seemingly made in jest on her previous visit, was, it seemed, not entirely hyperbole. The deal was more acceptable than most such that had been offered to her in the past – Krantor was not after power sharing within the Federation but a potentially mutually profitable financial venture: and there were, he implied, others in the same situation. Besides, he was prepared to acknowledge that they cordially loathed each other and would do each other down at the first opportunity. Which was an interesting challenge – in its way not dissimilar from that provided by Avon.

There was also an encounter with a somewhat melancholy Avon who had dropped no more than a hint of a near tragedy involving Blake. He in turn had suggested a deal: he would obscure some of her accounting and other shenanigans in return for Servalan promoting some of the more practical rebel policies – thereby gaining some popular support and thus an advantage over her colleagues – and removing some of the pressure on the rebels. If she failed to agree, her “association” with rebels and others, presented in the most negative light, as far as she was concerned, would be revealed. Blackmail plain and simple – but she desired him, and the challenge he provided, which was enough to make her agree to the demand. She had not been gambling – but moneys had to be rearranged at times to aid her rise through the ranks. Similar deals were reached with others in various situations.

Servalan found the intermittent demands made on her by her not-quite-allies insidious in their seeming simplicity. As she implemented the rebel-inspired policies discontent within her region declined. Her suggestion that equivalents to Freedom City be set up within Federation territory so Federation authorities could take a share of the profits was also approved – the cut she and Krantor arranged for herself, through his “advisor” was extremely profitable, though he had by far the larger share, and her debts decreased slower than she had been led to expect. That she was increasingly compromised should the links with Krantor and others be discovered was irrelevant so long as she rose within the administration, and she took all due care to disguise them. Besides, she enjoyed the tensions created, and the challenge of obscuring them.

Servalan decided to make her presence known in the gaming establishments she had set up – it would enable her to place a few discrete bets when she wished. Initially she had had some success, which had encouraged her to continue. She could control the desire to gamble that she had acquired on Freedom City, and she would stop with the first losses. However the occasional loss that marred her successes were too trivial to be a cause for stopping something so enjoyable – at least to start with. The losses, however, increased in size until they were more than covering her winnings – but her luck would change #eventually#. Or so she had thought – until now, when she had checked her accounts and realised how much she was in the red again. Were her superiors to find out how much she owed – and thus, no doubt, her connections and the potential for blackmail – which would be possible now, if she hadn’t been so corrupted already.  
This was the first time she had actually asked her ‘sponsors’ for help – and it would be the only time: she would refrain … for the present.

****

Servalan knew without being told if she attempted to arrange her visitor’s capture the records would present him as someone harmless, rather than one of the Federation’s most wanted rebels, while her secrets would be revealed.  
‘I understand,’ Avon said, ‘congratulations are in order for your recent promotion.’ The policies provided to her were leading to decreasing discontent, without the use of suppressant drugs.  
‘Thank you. The offer I made on Sarran still stands… and you would last longer than a week, I assure you.’  
Avon seemingly considered the offer. ‘Perhaps. But – I am safer with… those I work with now.’ He knew better than to refer to rebels in Servalan’s office – even though she had it regularly checked. The charm turned to seriousness. ‘You have a problem?’  
‘The one that besets so many – money.’ With Avon she would be honest – about this at least.  
‘Or the lack of it,’ Avon replied, allowing a brief smile. ‘You gamble still, whether in the casinos or arranging promotions and doing others down – and you owe a lot.’  
‘Yes – to both. Though I will cut back on the gambling for money.’ Servalan would not probe how Avon knew, and how much he had found out. ‘The same pleasure – gambling for more power or to see what can be done, and gambling for money – you understand, do you not? Will you share the gamble with me?’ This, she sensed, was what appealed to Avon and why he stayed with Blake and the others.  
‘What will I get out of it?’ There was more than just polite curiosity to the remark.  
‘Tell me what you want – and I will consider it, do what I can.’  
‘If I asked you to step aside, so I could take your role… if I asked for the Presidency?’  
‘You are bold – I enjoy that,’ Servalan replied truthfully. It was a shame that they were on opposite sides. She was, however, tempted by his challenge.  
‘I know. We understand each other – at least in certain aspects.’ He went to Servalan’s computers and started investigating. Servalan knew better than to stop him or inquire what he was doing.  
‘Will you help me? For the challenge of it?’  
‘For payment,’ Avon said abruptly – though he clearly enjoyed the idea.  
‘Ensuring that you, and your friends, are not recognisable in the Federation records is not easy, and takes time. I can only introduce so many reforms at any one time.’ Servalan said, and went to rest her hands lightly on Avon’s shoulders, looking at what he was doing to the computers – not that she would understand much of it. There was no obvious reaction to the physical contact on Avon’s part. ‘I think you are perfectly capable of appropriating money without my help.’ She assumed he would be careful what he did here.  
‘You will be told what is required… providing it is decided to retain you.’  
‘What?’ Servalan felt a sudden shock. Avon and those he represented, abandoning her? After all she had done for them? But she had used and abandoned people as her needs had dictated.  
‘You gamble. I have covered your debts and hidden your cover up for the second time.’  
‘There were good reasons for the first time…’  
‘What excuses do you have now?’ Avon said angrily. Had she shattered his illusions about her? Servalan was pleased that she had Avon’s interest, even as she knew the danger of now disappointing him.  
‘I enjoyed the challenge – you understand that. And I will be in control from now.’ Too much was at stake.  
‘We shall see.’

****

Then came a request from her nominal superior to explain the minor debt that had come all the way from Freedom City and was clearly intended as a warning.  
Servalan was able – just – to bluff her way out of the situation, putting it down to a mometary lapse and a sudden departure from the place on her recall. If the policies she had been promoting had not been so effective in keeping the populations of the region quiet and reasonably content instead of giving succour to the rebels she would have been in some difficulty – she was too useful to the Federation to have to face the consequences of her risk taking.

Servalan decided to take action over Krantor – she had no doubt it was he who had set the bad debt in motion.  
She started rearranging the finances under her control. Her years managing the military budget, as well as her own activities, had given her an understanding of how some of the finances and scams worked – which she had put to good use while on Freedom City, and after. The difference was now she was planning ahead of her activities – though she was doing much else. It was interesting, and profitable, if occasionally exhausting and distracting her from more directly useful pursuits. She was attempting to keep Krantor out of the way, manage her rise back into high office, deal with the rebels and the ideas they promoted, and generate an income out of manipulating the Federation’s finances that she had access to, however indirectly.  
Not that she was unwilling to work hard when it was in her own interests – and it was a challenge to balance everything. The difficulty was in ensuring that everything did not get so tangled that she let something slip through. She borrowed freely from the techniques Avon had used in his original bank fraud, among others.  
Servalan became aware of others doing the same. As Servalan, ambitious to reach the top, she would have used a mixture of exploitation and denunciation to make the best use of what she found. Now, as Sleer, with ambitions on a Regional Governorship as a stepping stone in her return to power, to provide the powerbase that family connections once had, and with scams of her own, she saw better how to make use of what she found.  
Some, however, were brought to the attention of the authorities: she was doing her job, after all, as well as eliminating actual competitors. Others found themselves redirected towards new, often less profitable, means of exploiting the resources of the Federation, or there were informal arrangements carving up spheres of interest and mutual cooperation. Servalan was realistic enough to recognise the areas in which she did not have the technical knowledge to act – and to avoid trying to create a monopoly on what she was doing and so creating resentment. Thwarted greed could be a powerful motive for revenge.  
Servalan finally had enough money to carry through her intentions on Freedom City. She had kept up to date with what had happened there, and knew that there was an opposition – or intended succession – to Krantor. As she had once mounted a coup against the then President, others wished to take on the role Krantor now had. It was time to take action.

****

Back on Freedom City Servalan had to fight the temptation to patronise the establishments she passed: if she started now there would be no holding back, and all she had achieved would be lost. She made for the Big Wheel to resolve matters with Krantor and Toise.  
‘Of course I am prepared to admit your earlier problem closed,’ Krantor said, ‘and we have had a most profitable –arrangement with the establishments we have set up within Federation territories.’  
‘Your expertise and my protection – how could we fail?’ Servalan replied. There was a slight risk in what she was doing, which she accepted.  
‘There is the matter of the receipts.’  
‘A crude attempt at blackmail, based on one small oversight,’ Servalan said dismissively. ‘I have set things up so those I presently work with will accept my version.’  
‘The matter of your other role?’ Krantor had had years of experience at being discrete when necessary.  
‘President Servalan has been declared dead, and her supporters eliminated. What connection is there between her and me?’  
‘A certain Madame Verlis, who does the rounds of establishments in Freedom City is looking for acts where she can offer long term contracts,’ slavery by another name, but not necessarily unacceptable to those taking the offer. Better some constraints and survive through talents made use of than nominal freedom and starve: and there would always be hope of future possibilities and freedom regained. ‘She happened to mention to me that she was owed some money in a peculiar currency by a Commissioner Sleer, and she wished to collect should I be in a position to help her.’  
Servalan had been expecting this. ‘The vem has been discontinued as a currency, and the subject under discussion disappeared before the sale was completed. Therefore there is no debt. Toise was most adroit in negotiating a settlement of the issue.’  
‘Pardon?’ Krantor was surprised.  
‘Toise will explain.’ He had ambitions of his own, and had been willing to cooperate in this activity for his own immediate ends: how long he would last in his new role would depend in part on what else Servalan was doing.

****

Krantor and Toise were eliminated in turn, would be a problem to her no longer – and the new leadership of Freedom City were prepared to keep the business relationship with Commissioner Sleer going on the same terms as before, though not in practice aware of the other aspects of the agreement with Krantor.  
On her way back to her office within the Federation Servalan remembered what Krantor had said in a previous conversation. He had offered to buy Space Command from the profits of his casino: could she find a way to buy the Big Wheel?  
It would require little more than what she was doing now, in terms of procedure – but a considerable amount of setting up. She was also continuing to implement the rebels’ policies without revealing precisely what she was trying to do, and continue her rise through the Federation administration.

****

Servalan was becoming slightly worried with her accounting rearrangements: it required increasingly large amounts to cover what had started out as fairly small gaps in the finance – not all of her doing: the Federation’s finances had been somewhat erratic even before the war. Not that anyone was presently investigating, but the quantity and amounts made it difficult to keep track at times – and there was the possibility of being moved out of this region on promotion or general reorganisation – which would put all her work at naught, and leave her open to exposure. She managed to arrange matters without causing suspicion – the others whose scams she had discovered proved co-operative in this context, as they too faced some of the same problems. There were ways of integrating still more accounts elsewhere into what she was doing – sometimes to mutual benefit with her colleagues-in-financial-rearrangements.  
She was getting closer to achieving her ambition – being in control of Freedom City. Acquiring power within the Federation administration had become less important – she knew what was involved, so it was less of a challenge than it had been. Besides it was no longer clear who was doing the administering – the Federation she had known or the rebels and their allies. Whether the rebels were using other mouthpieces, or others within the administration were appropriating ideas that were proving successful in keeping populations quiet was not something she could investigate without drawing attention to herself.  
Getting involved in the Big Wheel was something that the rebels who intermittently backed her could not have any claim over.  
The money Servalan had direct access to increased and – she had almost enough. Here greed could be fatal, so she tailed her activities off as approached her goal – stopping abruptly could create more problems … she could always reconsider in due course.

****

The transactions were completed. Now Servalan owned the Big Wheel – as well as the casinos linked to it within the Federation. All she had to do was to rearrange the moneys which she had temporarily “borrowed” and there would be nothing to draw attention to what had been done, except by *very* careful investigation.  
She went to look at the casino in action.  
‘Greetings,’ a familiar voice said softly beside her.  
‘Avon? What are you doing here?’  
‘Looking at my prize – the Big Wheel.’  
‘I bought it.’  
‘With money supplied by … those I work with.’  
‘But #I# was manipulating the Federation accounts.’  
‘You were – but thanks to your actions we were able to place rebels under deep cover, and provide a sufficient fraction of the money to take advantage of your activities.’  
Servalan remembered Avon doing things with her computer when she had called upon his services – perhaps even also the first encounter after Freedom City.  
‘All the changes you had me introduce?’  
‘Were part of the plan. So it is easier for the rebels to take over.’  
‘What will you do with me?’  
‘There are worse places to be exiled to than here. Consider what your enemies within the Federation are likely to do if they are made aware of what you have done.’  
‘I have no choice but to accept,’ Servalan admitted. She would be willing to enjoy the new challenge.  
The perfect punishment had been devised for her – she, who had acquired a weakness for gambling, put in charge of the Big Wheel – and with a significant say in the running of Freedom City as a whole, watching, but unable to influence, the Federation. Krantor had long ago explained that those who ran the casinos here were forbidden to play in them, to avoid conflict of interest.  
‘There is always a choice – and here there is a challenge.’ Avon admitted.  
‘We are alike in so many ways,’ Servalan said, as Avon deftly evaded her embrace. ‘We both enjoy challenges.’  
‘But yours is one I choose not to take: others have replaced you. And I have companions, a ship, Orac, and a universe to explore – what can you offer?’  
With that Avon left, leaving Servalan to her domain and her memories.


End file.
